My opponent immediately taught me something else about these weapons, because he held his in both hands, one on the hilt in the normal grip, and the other cradling the heavy end so that he held the weapon horizontally as he moved opposite me, assessing my capabilities. I could have told him I had none with such an ungainly weapon, but I knew he would arrive at that conclusion unaided, within a very short time. Prior to that, however, I would watch and hope to learn how to survive this encounter without disgracing myself. I began by holding my weapon the way he was holding his.
Decades have passed since that day but I can still recall it clearly and with ease, and the clearest recollection I have is the easy half smile on my adversary’s face, the supreme confidence expressed in his every move and the crouching grace with which he faced me. I knew that the weapon I was holding was going to hinder me, but I found myself taking encouragement from the way it nestled in my hands. And when he opened his attack by springing toward me, changing his grip swiftly to grasp the hilt in both hands and bring a mighty overhead blow down on me, I was ready for him. I could have jumped backward or to either side to avoid the blow, because I saw it coming from the outset, but I chose to step into him instead, raising my weapon high in both hands to meet and absorb his blow before it could develop full momentum.
From that moment of first impact, when his sword hit mine, I lost all awareness of any newness or strangeness in my weapon and I fought as Tiberias Cato had taught me to fight, using all his tricks. Inside the big man’s guard as I was, . I turned and rammed my elbow into the soft, vulnerable spot beneath the join of his ribs. He grunted heavily and staggered backward and as he went reeling I spun again and slashed hard at his left knee. He managed to block the blow with a downthrust blade and then exploded into a catlike leap that won him enough distance to leave him safe for a few moments. And then the fight began in earnest.
The exhilaration of combat and the thirst for victory combined to increase my focus and my concentration, so that all my normal fighting skills seemed enhanced and I adjusted quickly and completely to my new sword, manipulating it at times as though it were a spear with a solid, heavy shaft.
We fought long and hard, neither of us able to gain a lasting advantage over the other. When he attacked me, hacking and slashing ferociously, I would back away, fending off his blows and concentrating wholly on absorbing and avoiding his ferocity until the moment when I felt the vigor of his charge begin to wane. Then it became my turn to pursue him. Back and forth we went, time after time, the entire meadow echoing with the hard, dry clattering of blade against blade. We lost awareness, right at the outset, of the people watching us. We had no time for others. Our entire attention was focused upon each other because we both knew, within moments of our first clash, that we were equally matched despite his greater size and reach, and that this fight would go to the first man fortunate enough to land a solid blow. And each of us intended to be that man. But on and on it went, advance and retreat, neither of us able to land that solid blow and both of us growing more and more fatigued with every passing moment.
There came a time, and I had known it must come soon, when I began to feel, and to believe, that I was incapable of lifting my weapon above my head one more time. But he attacked again, hewing wickedly at my flanks, and one of his blows, a lateral slash, knocked aside my guardian blade and hit me at midthigh.
It was not a killing blow, for my own weapon had countered it and absorbed most of its strength, but had we been using real weapons it would have cut me deeply and been the end of me. As it was, I felt the crushing impact and my mind transported me instantly to Gaul where, three years earlier, I had been kicked in the same place, and with much the same force, by a horse. Then, as on this occasion, there was no pain, and I knew this time I would feel none until later. For the time being, however, my entire leg was numb. I could move on it without falling if I did so with great care, but I could not feel it at all.
Knowing he had hit me hard, my opponent held back instead of rushing in to finish me, and in doing so he gave the initiative back to me. I took full advantage of it, using a two handed grip to unleash a rain of blows, pushing him inex orably backward with a fierce but unsustainable attack. knew I was using the last of my reserves of strength but I ha gone beyond caring. I knew that I would be finished the mo ment my attack began to falter, but I was determined to go down fighting. And then, in jumping backward to avoid crippling slash, my opponent caught his heel on somethin uneven and fell heavily, landing hard on his backside an losing his blade in the process.
It was my victory. All I had to do was step forward an place the end of my weapon against his chest. Instead—an to this day I do not know why I did it, although I am glad did—I transferred my weapon to my left hand, grounded it and then stepped forward, offering him my right hand to pul himself up.
Only when he was standing facing me again, his righ hand still holding mine and his left gripping my shoulder did I realize that he was breathing every bit as laboriously I was. He finally sucked in one great, deep breath and held i for long moments before expelling it again, and when h spoke his voice was close to normal.
“That was well fought, sir Gaul, and it was a task I woul not care to undertake again today or any other day. Yo are …” He paused, searching for a word. “Formidable. Yes that describes you. Formidable. Now that you have thrash me, will you permit me to ask who are you and whence yo come, and who taught you to fight like that?”
He released my hand and waved away one of his men wh was trying to attract his attention, and I knew that he gen uinely wanted to hear my answers. I nodded my head. “M name is Clothar,” I said, looking him in the eye and seein the black flecks in the tawny gold of his irises. “And I am nc a Gaul. I am a Frank, from southern Gaul. A Salian F reared among Ripuarians in the south.” I saw the blanknes in his eyes immediately and knew he had no idea what I wa talking about, so I held up my hand quickly, palm outwarc to indicate that I was aware of his incomprehension.
“There are two kinds of Franks in Gaul,” I said then. “Two clans, if you like. Both drifted down into Gaul from Germania during the past hundred years and more, and each came from a different region. The clan who call themselves Ripuarians kept moving southward and settled in southeastern Gaul, and the others, who call themselves Salian Franks, settled the northern and northeastern territories. The tale of how I came to be raised among Ripuarians far from my own home is a long one and of little import here. But I was sent here to Britain, accompanied by two of my friends more than a year ago by my patron and mentor, Bishop Germanus, late of the town of Auxerre, in central Gaul. My task was to carry letters and documents from the Bishop to Merlyn Britannicus of Camulod. Sadly, the bishop is now dead, but I have completed the task he set for me.”
The entire group was listening to me now, but I kept my eyes on the man they called Magister. “As for the fighting,” I added, smiling slightly, “I learned that thanks to the Bishop, too. He was an Imperial Legate before he was a bishop, strange as that might seem … but then Germanus was a wondrous man. He was a close friend of the Emperor Honorius, too, married to one of the Imperial cousins … and he served victoriously as Supreme Commander of the Armies of Gaul in the wars against the Burgundians right up until he retired and joined the Church. So he knew well the value of training and discipline, both military and religious. I spent six years as a student at the school he founded in Auxerre for boys. They call it the Bishop’s School, and the stable master there, Tiberias Cato, is a former cavalryman who served under Germanus when he was Legate. It was Tiberias Cato who taught me to ride and to fight, and it was he who, as a much younger man, brought those spears back from the other Empire in the distant east. And now I am here in Camulod awaiting the return of Arthur the Riothamus.”